The present invention relates to telecommunications systems and more particularly to a novel mode of operation in which a telecommunications system itself initiates a message exchange between two or more communicants, conditioned upon the system""s determination of the utility (i.e., the usefulness or value) yielded by that initiative.
Real-time telecommunications systems have conventionally operated in a communicant-driven mode, in which the first step in a message exchange is that of a communicant transmitting a request for a channel to another specific communicant. The request may be accepted by the second communicant, with acceptance followed by a message exchange, which may be in real time, over a channel set up by the network following acceptance of the initial xe2x80x9crequest for message exchangexe2x80x9d (hereinafter, xe2x80x9cRFMExe2x80x9d). The messages exchanged may be oral (e.g., by telephone), electronic (e.g., xe2x80x9cinstant messagingxe2x80x9d or e-mail over the Internet), physical (e.g., by telegram), or any combination thereof.
As used herein, the term xe2x80x9ctelecommunications networkxe2x80x9d refers to all elements of an electrical, electronic, optical, or acoustical communications system, including those elements involved in the carriage, routing, switching, storage, forwarding, modulating, encrypting, or decrypting of messages, but excluding those elements which, in a particular instance, are defined herein as xe2x80x9ccommunicantsxe2x80x9d.
As used herein, the term xe2x80x9ccommunicantxe2x80x9d refers to an originator or a recipient of a message carried by the network.
As used herein, the term xe2x80x9caddressable devicexe2x80x9d refers to a device to which messages may be sent using a network address. An addressable device may be either a part of the network, or a communicant, depending upon its function. For example, in the public switched telephone network (hereinafter, xe2x80x9cPSTNxe2x80x9d), when a person answers a ringing telephone, the telephone is an addressable device, and the person is a communicant. In contrast, when a telephone answering machine automatically answers a call, the telephone answering machine is both an addressable device and a communicant.
The PSTN is perhaps the most ubiquitous example of a real-time telecommunications network operating in this conventional, communicant-driven mode. In its most general form, an addressable device (e.g., a station device, which may be an ordinary telephone), is caused by a communicant to go xe2x80x9coff-hookxe2x80x9d, and, upon receipt of a dial tone, to transmit an RFME to another station device by dialing the telephone number that constitutes that device""s network address. The station device then accepts this request by itself going off-hook, and a full-duplex audio channel is opened between the two station devices. Station devices and full-duplex audio channels are conventionally related in a one-to-one fashion (i.e., in a single-channel protocol), such that a station device can support only one concurrent full-duplex audio channel.
This mode of operation is characterized by a familiar set of failure conditions which diminish its utility to communicants, to the operator of the telecommunications system, and to the economic and social entities served by the telecommunications system (e.g., people, businesses, society as a whole).
Some of these failure conditions are:
Receiver Station Busy: The addressable device to which an RFME is addressed may be engaged in another message exchange at the time the request is transmitted. Insofar as the system architecture does not permit stations to interact with multiple simultaneous real-time channels, the message exchange desired by the initiating communicant cannot occur at that time. An example of this in the world of conventional telephony is a busy signal.
Addressable Device Not Responsive: The addressable device to which the RFME is addressed, although not at that time engaged in another message exchange, does not respond to the RFME. An example of this in the world of conventional telephony is where a telephone rings, but it is not answered.
Communicant Not Responsive: The addressable device to which the RFME is addressed responds to the request by going off hook, but the communicant with whom the initiating communicant desires to communicate does not respond to the addressable device. An example of this in the world of conventional telephony is where an answering machine answers a call.
Network Failure/Channel Teardown: A communications channel is torn down absent a valid request from at least one of the communicants, or a designed initiative of the network itself. An example of this is teardown of a wireless telephony channel when one of the wireless telephones loses contact with the network.
Each of these failure conditions diminishes the utility derived from the telecommunications network. The time and the expense invested by the initiating communicant in the attempt to establish real-time message exchange with the other communicant fails in each case to yield the sought-after utility and so are lost. Similarly, revenues and/or other utility associated with network usage are lost by the network operator and/or network owner.
Other opportunity costs may be incurred by the initiating communicant insofar as his addressable device, while engaged in a failed attempt to establish communications with another communicant, is not available to initiate or accept other message exchanges.
A familiar and ubiquitous set of solutions has developed with regard to these failure conditions, although each of these solutions has shortcomings, and fails to achieve the maximum possible utility sought by communicants and/or by the network""s operators and/or owners.
Queuing is widely used as a solution to the problems caused by single-channel protocol that many networks have imposed upon communicants.
A typical queuing solution eliminates some or all denials of RFME by incorporating a network layer upstream of the communicant in the network architecture. This intermediary layer can accept multiple concurrent requests for message exchange addressed to the communicant, manage multiple concurrent real-time message channels, and hand off each such channel to the communicant as the communicant""s addressable device becomes available. A familiar example of this class of queuing solution is seen in PBX and similar devices, in conjunction with PSTN hunt groups or functionally similar PSTN provisioning.
A striking feature of the queuing solution to denial of RFME in single-channel protocol networks is that the initiating communicant, while queued for the communicant to which he addressed the RFME, is functionally segregated from all other network communicants. His addressable device is dedicated to waiting in a queue, and cannot accept RFMEs or initiate an RFME to other communicants. Enormous amounts of time are lost by communicants being xe2x80x9cplaced on holdxe2x80x9d. This inefficiency, from the queued communicant""s standpoint, can be mitigated somewhat if he, too, has a queuing solution which allows him to initiate and receive RFMEs while the outgoing RFME is queued.
Another familiar solution to failures of communicant-initiated RFME entails reducing the communications mode from real-time to store-and-forward.
The conventional telephone answering machine is an example of this class of solution, wherein the communicant""s addressable device is available but the communicant himself is not responsive for one reason or another.
Telco xe2x80x9cvoice mailxe2x80x9d is another example, which, depending on the implementation, may also involve a queuing component. In any case, when the outcome of an RFME addressed to a specific addressable device is not accepted (i.e., the addressable device is not available or does not expressly accept the RFME) the network offers to record a message from the initiating communicant which may subsequently be made available to the addressee.
All of the solutions to the inefficiencies and lack of utility inherent in communicant-initiated networks are aimed at mitigation, and do not alter the role of the network as a passive entity.
In contrast, Network Initiated Communications (hereinafter, xe2x80x9cNICxe2x80x9d) offers an alternative mode which differs fundamentally from the conventional, communicant-initiated mode of establishing communications between communicants.
NIC offers:
1. A solution to avoid losing utility from the failure conditions described earlier, rather than a solution which mitigates the effects of such lost utility; and
2. Opportunities for exploitation of novel classes of utility inherent in present telecommunications technology, such as wireless networks.
One object of the present invention is therefore to overcome the disadvantages of the communicant-initiated methods and systems for communications by providing a network-initiated method and system for communications.
Another object of the present invention is to allow for new types of communications, not possible with conventional communicant-initiated communication methods and systems.
In accordance with the present invention, communicants on a telecommunications network do not attempt to initiate communications with other communicants by the addressing of an RFME, but rather, the network itself initiates setup of message exchange between two or more network communicants when the network determines that pre-specified or calculated conditions or criteria are met.
The types of conditions which are necessary and/or sufficient for NIC may vary as a function of the technological capabilities of the network to measure, calculate, and identify the parameters comprising those conditions, and as a function of the utility desired by the network""s users, owners and other interested parties.
One broad class of conditions or criteria are those comprised of parameters associated with the physical and functional status of the network""s components individually. The availability of addressable devices, the traffic load as a percentage of maximum capacity, the operating history of individual or aggregated network components, the physical location of one or more addressable devices and, in the case of wireless, the movement of one or more addressable devices may all be taken into account as determinants of NIC.
Environmental parameters such as date, time, weather conditions, pollution levels, tides, and ambient radiation levels are another such class of parameters.
Other variables associated with human activities such as financial, commercial, political, and economic parameters, transportation systems"" status and schedules, individuals"" personal attributes, preferences and desires, and offers of goods, services, companionship, etc. are another class of parameters.
The values assigned by the network to the variables it uses in determining whether or not to initiate communication between two or more network communicants can be determined by the network itself, can be obtained from the communicants, and/or can be obtained from other sources external to the network. The values can be assigned to these variables at any time in the determination process.
The network""s determination that the conditions have been met for initiating a real-time communication between two or more network communicants is preferably the outcome of an analysis which may be arithmetic, logical, statistical, historical, probabilistic, or random, or may incorporate elements of more than one, or all, of these methodologies.
The method of analysis executed in a particular instance may be specified by any interested party, including the network""s designer(s), owner(s), operator(s), or users(s), either singly or in any combination.
In accordance with the present invention, the determination to initiate communications between two or more communicants can be based upon any combination of the above-mentioned parameters and methods of analysis. Additionally, a randomizing factor may be introduced into the determination. For example, a communicant may wish to receive a call at a randomly selected time and/or with a randomly selected person chosen from among those who meet certain criteria.
The execution of the analysis determining NIC between two or more network communicants is supported in a facility central to the network architecture (a connection processor), such that the connection processor is receptive of the status of all network components, and of all data (xe2x80x9cinput dataxe2x80x9d), involved in the determination of the initiation of communications.
The input data itself may be maintained centrally or in distributed fashion, or both.
For example, a central database may consist of a routing table using conventional physical addressing enhanced by a conditional addressing element consisting of each communicant""s criteria for acceptance of NICs. Rather than consisting only of a network address, as in the PSTN, of the form NPA-NXX-SSSS, this conditional address may consist, for example, of both a conventional PSTN NPA-NXX-SSSS address, and additional data, such as Hours of Receptivity, Acceptable Co-Communicant (e.g., one or more NPA-NXX-SSSS addresses), procedural logic to be used in the determination of whether or not to initiate communications, etc.
An example of such procedural logic which would initiate a call between the communicant entering the procedural logic into the connection processor and the station device with address 212-555-1234 during specified times is:
Data elements such as personal attributes, addressable device status, addressable device properties, and station-specific procedural logic may be maintained at the station level in the network architecture, or at any other level within or without the network architecture as determined by technical, economic, and/or convenience criteria, so long as such data elements are accessible to the connection processor.
In one embodiment of the present invention, a wireless telephone subscriber A traveling in a distant city Y specifies to the wireless network a receptivity to communications with other wireless subscribers based in his home city, X, but currently located in city Y.
When the wireless network determines that:
Subscriber A""s wireless telephone is not busy;
AND With respect to another subscriber, B, whose wireless telephone is based in city X, that B""s wireless telephone is currently located in city Y;
AND B""s wireless telephone is not busy;
AND B is receptive to NIC compatible with A""s characteristics and requirements
the wireless network will initiate call setup between the wireless telephones of A and B.
This very simple embodiment yields the utility of establishing telephone contact between two persons with a common characteristic, in this case the home city, with no time or effort spent by either party in actively searching for, or attempting to contact, the other.
The foregoing and other features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent in light of the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments of the invention, as illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein: